Ask 20 programmers and you will get 19 different answers on that question.You should try several different editors to find the one you like the most.

I use Notepad++ with some plugins as my editor with basic functionalityI have used Webocton Scriptly before, which is great too.Try UltraEdit and Textpad, too. Both are well known.vim is a little bit different, but if you really like keyboard navigation it can be the fastest editor you can use.

If you search for a full IDE, there are 3 i can recommend:Eclipse PDTNetbeans PHP (which i actually use)Zend Studio (expensive, but maybe the best IDE in combination with Zend Server)

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I use emeditor mostly. Not freeware but it's search & replace function is more powerful. (namely regex)Some pre-made macros & plugins help a lot. I also like its encoding methods & BOM settings in every saving dialog.